New Delhi, February 05: The Lok Gathbandhan Party (LGP) today criticised the NDA government for fudging or hiding the statistical data to present a rosy picture of the economy in the country. The LGP said while ground realities are quite glaring among the people, such an exercise will not politically help the NDA in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections.
The spokesman of the LGP, headed by former Secretary Government of India Vijay Shankar Pandey, said here on Tuesday that during the last five years the economy has gone from bad to worse with crony capitalism on the rise but now with the general elections round the corner the NDA government has resorted to misrepresent the situation by misleading statistical data. Pointing out that jump in unemployment rate to 6.1% in 2017-18, a 45-year high, is an indication of the prevailing situation, the spokesman said the NDA government is in denial mode by not officially releasing the job data and has been presenting excuses over the issue. The spokesman said Indian data credibility has long been an invaluable asset which the NDA government for political reasons has been trying to destroy. Similarly the government just before the presentation of interim budget also revised GDP growth estimates for the last two years sharply upward, the spokesman said and added upward revision of the GDP data in the disastrous demonetization year of 2016-17 to 8.2% did not go down well with the masses who were worst affected by “currency ban” and lopsided implementation of the goods and services tax (GST).
The spokesman said the government attitude in this connection is well-exposed in the resignation of two independent members of National Statistical Commission (NSC), including its chairman PC Mohanan over concealment of job data of NSSO. The spokesman said by such mechanism the NDA government cannot change narrative to claim “Acche Din” as the people donot respond to such gimmicks and they go by their lived reality and sufferings. Moreover this is also not going to improve the confidence of the investors, the spokesman and added pushing the actual data under the carpet is not at all in the interest of the country.
